Adaptability as a revenue stream?

In the last five years, CEO Alan Trefler has led Pegasystems to generate 250% growth, reaching $250 million in revenue in 2010 from around 100 million in 2005. In fact, during the recent recession, Pegasystems continued to grow. The secret? Adaptability, in both product and in process.

Trefler recognized an opportunity for innovation "through a dynamic software product that would be flexible and customizable to better adapt to clients’ changing business needs."

During a recent interview by blogger Kaihan Krippendorff, Trefler said, "If you don’t believe in the rhythm of change, if the rhythm of change is measured in years or quarters because you know that from writing a [technology request] document to the delivery of the result it’s going to take a year, then you become obsessed with putting everything into [that document]…[but] if you believe you can really iterate every week…then your whole view changes. This is an approach that enables continuous improvement."

Trefler's strategy depended on two important shifts:

1. Rapid iteration, and


2. A shift from an information-centered view to an interface view.

In practical terms, Trefler's approach was to build a flying horse when his competitors were building bridges.

To read more about how Trefler led success at Pegasystems, visit FastCompany.com.

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DigitalNow 2011: April 6 - 9 at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: Save the Date!

DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Death of the Open Web?

The "open" Web has become saturated, overrun, and has even begun to fall into disuse, with an entire generation of sites being abandoned and virtually (virtually) useless. In a recent article, New York Times author Virginia Heffernan calls the simliarities between what happened in large cities like New York, Chicago, and Detroit and what is happening to the open Web "striking."

"Like the great modern American cities, the Web was founded on equal parts opportunism and idealism. Over the years, nerds, students, creeps, outlaws, rebels, moms, fans, church mice, good-time Charlies, middle managers, senior citizens, starlets, presidents and corporate predators all made their home on the Web... But a kind of virtual redlining is now under way. The Webtropolis is being stratified."

Heffernan says that with the purchase of an iPhone or an iPad, people can escape the riffraff of the Open Web in favor of, "... an orderly suburb... defined by apps from the glittering App Store. In the migration of dissenters from the 'open' Web to pricey and secluded apps, we’re witnessing urban decentralization, suburbanization and the online equivalent of white flight."

Are you headed out of the open Web in favor of paid sites and groups, and/or apps that keep you separate and away from the general Web population? What do you think the ramifications will be of this online stratification?

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DigitalNow 2011: April 6 - 9 at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa: Save the Date!

DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Your most valuable asset? Creativity

As we're coming off the worst economic conditions that many of us have ever witnessed first-hand, you would think CEOs would be focused on honing management disciplines or tightening operational efficiencies. But according to a new study conducted by IBM, "... 60% of CEOs polled cited creativity as the most important leadership quality compared with 52% for integrity and 35% for global thinking. Creative leaders are also more prepared to break with the status quo of industry, enterprise and revenue models, and they are 81% more likely to rate innovation as a 'crucial capability.'"

The study polled 1,500 corporate heads and public sector leaders across 60 nations and 33 industries.

For a detailed analysis of the study, visit FastCompany.com.

Do you regard creativity as your most important leadership quality? Leave a comment, and tell us what qualities you think are most valuable in a leader in today's climate, and why.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

You Snooze, You Lose

When bringing new products or services to the marketplace, speed is crucial. According to Gregg Gallagher of QuantumLeaders.com, specific payoffs from speed include:

1. "Speed yields higher profitability - by decreasing time to market, a firm realizes higher revenues from sales being attained earlier and longer within the overall product life cycle.


2. Speed means fewer surprises - by reducing the likelihood that market conditions will dramatically change during a protracted development period.


3. Speed yields competitive advantage - via the ability of the company to respond to customers’ needs faster than their competition."

"It takes as long as it takes," is no longer the name of the game. Being fast means developing the ability to shorten your development/launch/evaluation cycle. QuantumLeaders has developed a framework known as the Real Time Execution Wave™, which, "shortens the time between the decision-making elements of observation-decision-action-evaluation."

The Real Time Execution Wave™ is part of The Living Organization Model™. Learn more by downloading the white papers at QuantumLeaders.com (free registration required.)

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Do you foursquare?

Just when you got used the idea of using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, along comes this strange new social media creature called "foursquare." What exactly is foursquare, and how the heck do you use it?

We were curious too, so we downloaded the app to our iPhone and checked it out. Here's how it works, in a nutshell: When you log in to foursquare, it uses GPS to determine your location. It then presents you with a list of places - businesses, etc. - that are located near you. For example, your office, the coffee shop next door, and the gas station across the street might all be listed. You then select your specific location and you "check in." That's your statement of where you're located at the moment. If your location isn't in the list, you can add it.

Once you are checked in at a location, you can leave tips about it - either on your smart phone, or via the web. If you check in at the coffee shop next door and they have a great breakfast burrito, you can leave a tip that says, "Best breakfast burrito in town!" Then, when future foursquare users check into that coffee shop, they can refer to their app for tips about what's good at that location. And, if they happen to check in there the same time as you, well, you just might make a new friend.

Becoming a foursquare mayor is an interesting feature. Every time you check in at a location, it is recorded. The person who checks in most is dubbed "mayor." Proprietors may offer discounts or freebies to foursquare mayors, which creates fun competition and can increase traffic to the venue as patrons vie to win the spot.

We were a little leery at first. After all, do you really want everyone to know where you are at all times? Well, fear not - foursquare allows you to log in and out at will, and also enables you to check in "off the grid" so others can't see where you are.

While foursquare is fun and can be useful to local retailers and their customers, the application to the association community may not be immediately evident. So tell us: Are you or is anyone in your organization using foursquare? If so, leave a comment and share your best practices and ideas - or share your concerns. With check-ins doubling over a month-long period to more than 40 million, foursquare may very well be the next big thing in social media.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

If you build it...

... will they come?

Yes. And no.

When it comes to building social media communities, valuable content is paramount, but the other half of the equation has to do with your virtual location. Before you set up shop on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you must determine where your potential audience is most likely to be found.

According to OpenForum.com, people with graduate-level education are most likely found on LinkedIn, and Facebook tends to have a greater number of active females. For an analysis of the demographics by site, read the article here.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

A foursquare Economy?

According to Dan Robles, the next economic paradigm is on the horizon, and it looks bit like the social media site Foursquare. Some of the Foursquare features that Robles says are keys to this new financial system are:

• Geolocation helps get people together in the same place at the same time.


• Knowledge inventory provides a way for information to exist and be utilized within a community


• Vetting mechanisms help to rate or assign value scores to information and its sources

Robles says that currency is the key feature missing from Foursquare, but it is the feature that will eventually make the social media world go 'round. However, "currency" in the context of social media is not what you may think.

"Innovation is a promise of future productivity," writes Robles. "Debt is also a promise of future productivity. It is only a matter of time that all of the activity in this new generation of social media applications will resolve to, and aggregate around, a new form of currency that will compete with the dollar itself."

Read more at www.relationship-economy.com.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Healthcare of the Future

According to the Harvard Business Review, the field of medicine is ripe for innovation. The bad news is that the barriers to innovation in medicine can be formidable, including everything from resistant doctors to prohibitive costs. However if new ideas, tools, and practices can make it past those barriers and into the mainstream, the opportunity for transformation does exist. HBR's Top Ten Innovations to Transform Medicine include:

1. "Checklists


2. Behavioral Economics


3. Patient Portals


4. Payment Innovations


5. Evidence-Based Decision Making


6. Accountable Care Organizations


7. virtual Visits


8. Regenerative Medicine


9. Surgical Robots


10. Genetic Medicine"

Read the article at Harvard Business Review.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Social Media for Business: 21 Tips

If you're one of those people who hasn't yet accepted social media as a valid business enabler, author Brian Solis just may change your mind.

Solis is the author of Engage, a guide for building, measuring and cultivating business success using "the new web."

At SocialMediaToday.com, Solis posts an excerpt, offering 21 tips to get you started - with suggestions for everything from fundraising to recruitment to event promotion.

Have you successfully used social media to achieve a business objective? Leave a comment and share your experience with the community.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Facebook: Don't get highjacked

As Facebook has risen to the top of the social networking list, the site's privacy settings have been the topic of much discussion. To complicate matters, Facebook's default settings and privacy policies have changed in recent months, catching many users off guard. It is highly recommended that users who have not yet done so should visit the privacy settings on their accounts and make any necessary adjustments. But for some Facebook users, that's the least of their troubles.

The New York Times recently reported that, "bogus and stolen accounts on Facebook are now on sale in high volume on the black market." Highjacked accounts are then used to distribute malicious programs, spread spam, and run identity fraud.

Buzz Marketing Daily offers these five tips for things you can do to protect yourself:

1. "Don’t share your account password or login information.


2. Turn off saved passwords & auto-complete options on your browser.


3. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.


4. Don’t click or follow nondescript or otherwise suspicious links.


5. Remember: If you weren’t friends then, you probably still aren’t now."

Have you experienced any Facebook issues with regard to privacy or fraud? If so, how did you rectify that? Add a comment below and share your experience with the DigitalNow community.

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DigitalNow 2010 - a resounding success! Watch videos and download session content from DigitalNow 2010 at http://www.digitalnowlive.comFollow DigitalNow on Twitter.Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com